And The Clock Struck Midnight
by scrapbullet
Summary: Sequel to The Gift. The gifts Mohinder receives aren't what you'd call conventional... but Sylar likes to think they have meaning.


Disclaimer; I don't own a thing, nope. Heroes and the characters portrayed there-in are the property of... well someone American. Not me. No infringement is intended.

And The Clock Struck Midnight

One balmy spring morning, it happens. The peace and quiet that normally permeates the Suresh household is broken, the bitter taste of grief drifting through the rooms and leaving behind the kind of atmosphere that you can cut with a knife.

It's the morning after Molly's funeral, and Mohinder finds himself wallowing in a state of limbo; numb and void of emotion. Simply put, it hurts too much. The silence resonates where once childish laughter had been, oppressive, making his heart beat quickly in the naive hope that his adopted daughter will burst out of her room and proclaim that it was all just a joke.

But even he knows that this hope is useless.

The sharp rat-a-tat-tat on the door is loud enough to cause his heart to bomb in time with it, heavy and solid and threatening to burst from his chest. Regardless, Mohinder pulls himself to his feet with an inaudible sigh and opens the door... only to find a rose. Just one, its crimson petals stark against the ground and he almost imagines that the colour is bleeding together but _oh..._ those are just his tears.

Brushing them away, he reaches for the flower, deadly in its beauty. And no sooner as he touches it, does a thorn pierce the vulnerable flesh of his skin... a single droplet of blood sliding down his digit to drip to the floor.

Mohinder stares at the wound, oddly fascinated.

He doesn't even feel the pain.

- - - - - - - - - -

Upon receiving the second gift, Mohinder reflects on the past. Even with the absence of a note, he knows who the rose had come from, and thus, the mysterious arrival of the next gift gives him cause to pause. He isn't dumb, deaf or blind. He knows that Sylar is playing with him, a subtle game of cat and mouse where there's no doubt who will be the victor.

The chocolates are sweet, boxed carefully, the gift left on his doorstep as if a subtle reminder of the unspoken promises made in the past. Whereas to an outsider, such a present might appear thoughtful, and romantic, to the geneticist it feels only as if he is being mocked silently, watched by a stealthy predator hidden in the shadows, waiting to sink its jaws into the throat of his prey. The anger bubbles in his chest, and as if to prove his stalker wrong, he bites into a chocolate, its sickly sweetness sticky and closing up his throat, choking.

When he looks down, however, he discovers that the sweetness in his mouth isn't from the manufactured taste of the chocolate, but from the writhing, wriggling mass of maggots that resides within the hard sugar-candy casing.

Mohinder loses his stomach right there on his doorstep.

The insect larva continues to squirm this way and that, only to be met with the heel of Mohinders shoe, his grief interlaced with fury.

However, it melts away, leaving him feeling cold.

What does it matter, anyway?

- - - - - - - - - -

When Mohinder awakens the following morning, the sight that greets him burns into his retinas, unable to stop the cloud of tears that blurs his vision. It's almost funny, how Sylar's game affects him so, for the object that sits so innocently upon the end of his bed causes so much grief to well up in his chest that he almost can't even breathe. A vice grips his heart tightly, a dark ache that threatens to overpower him.

Molly is sitting on the end of his bed.

But no... not his Molly. Not his daughter, stark with life, full of childish curiosity and innocence.

The doll mocks him, its glassy eyes staring at him as if challenging him to throw the fragile porcelain off the bed and to smash it into a million pieces. It bears the mark of an artist, the gentle limbs and the arc of its face, made in Molly's likeness. And there, the warm scent that prickles his nose is so very familiar -- sweet, like baby powder yet not as cloying – and the hair upon the dolls head is soft as rainfall.

It smells like her.

With a sharp clarity, he realises that it's her hair. That that familiar smell comes from the gentle waves, and instead of throwing the doll against the wall as he should do... Mohinder brings it to his chest and imagines that the cool porcelain limbs are warm and full of life... that she's alive and in his arms, perhaps comforted after one of her nightmares.

He stays like that until nightfall, arms wrapped around the tiny likeness of his daughter, his mind shattering at the edges, as fragile as glass.

- - - - - - - - - -

When the clock strikes midnight, the shadows of Mohinders room seem to split and writhe as if in agony, monsters in the darkness. And yet he still holds the gift in his arms, even as the devil himself stalks into the room, skin pale and eyes dark with promises.

"Mohinder," Sylar murmurs, drawing his fingers through those dark curls, "do you like your gifts?"

Silence. The geneticist remains silent, eyes glassy and blank, even as Sylars lips press chaste kisses to his face, sliding across the arc of his throat to nuzzle his shoulder and breathe in the warm, spicy scent that is uniquely Mohinder. "It took a lot of time and effort to create her." He adds fondly, the Molly-doll encased between their bodies. "She's a beauty, isn't she? She's yours."

Mohinder stirs. "Yes. Mine."

"I did it for you. The gifts... they're certainly not conventional. But would you expect any less?"

Taking the doll from the geneticist's tight grasp, Sylar pushes him down onto the bed, fingertips grazing over the vulnerable silkiness of his pets eyelids. "Surrender to me." Sylar whispers, voice dark, loving, full of promises. Promises of dark desire and darker control, and Mohinder does not fight it. Why would he? All that he has ever had has been ripped from him by this man, this beast, and now he himself is naught but an object, a possession.

Hands part cloth reverently, lips grazing his sternum and the pleasant sensation almost seems distant, watching through the eyes of another. The palm groping at his crotch is leaden in its weight and yet isn't there, invisible, nonexistent, and the moan that escapes Mohinders throat is grief-stricken.

"Surrender to me." Sylar repeats, and the muscles of Mohinders stomach flutter, contract and relax, those sinful lips trailing lower...

...And so, he surrenders.


End file.
